The changing face of the average gambler

This week is Responsible Gambling Awareness Week. A Southern Cross University study released this week shows fewer Australians are gambling but the age of the average gambler is falling. The way they are gambling is also changing: they're now more likely to be betting online instead of on the Pokies.

Kathy Griffin is the senior counsellor at Relationships Australia in Ballarat. She's also the coordinator of the Gamblers Help program.

"The counsellors are actually reporting to me that they're seeing young men, and there's a couple of groups of young people that we do tend to see.

"The first is young people that are dislocated from their community. They actually go away to university and often don't have the support of parents or their peer groups.

"I guess some of those could be related to sporting clubs, I mean that's also an impact that I think we need to look at, or the government needs to look at, particularly with advertising and the proliferation of that over recent times.

She says many of the young gamblers are working white-collar jobs.

"Young, highly educated, highly motivated males that have a fairly competitive nature, who often feel they can actually win and they're smart enough to be able to win on a regular basis. And as they start to gamble more they start chasing their losses and often end up in a lot of trouble as a result of that.

"And I guess the other thing that comes to mind is often young people in workplaces where there's a culture of gambling."

Patrick Thornton seems to fit the bill perfectly. He's 26 and works in a venue with a room full of Pokies machines and a TAB next-door.

He's a regular gambler who doesn't see his habit as a problem. He gambles with his friends on sporting events, and in private on his smart phone - using betting applications - and on the internet.

"We have beers around the home, it saves going down to the pub. We just do it at home, it's easier now."

Patrick says in an average week he spends anything up to $100 on gambling.

"If I'm out with a few friends it might be a little bit more, it just depends how I'm going really."

But he says he's not worried about the money he loses.

"The missus brings it up with me every now and then but it doesn't really bother me, I always have under $100 to spend so I never spend any more...if I can try."

Patrick says it takes less than 30 seconds for him to place a bet using a phone application.

"It's very simple, you just need to log in, and just pick the race number and the horse and easy as that, you're on and ready to go."

He says there's a clear distinction between those in the Pokies room and those in the TAB.

"The ones in the Pokies are the older generation and the TAB are the sporting, my age kind of group of people, mostly men."

Patrick says he's seen people with gambling problems and says Gamblers Help has been useful for them.